| Back Cover
Frances is the ultimate L.A. party girl who
lives for the Hollywood scene. Lily is in town to
hook up with the man of her dreams. When they lose
the wedding invitation, they go on an after-hours
search through late-night Hollywood as they hop
from club to club, party to party and boy to
boy.
Movie Review
AKA - DESPERATE BUT NOT SERIOUS, this film is a
throwback to the fun and cheerful indies about
twenty to thirty-somethings looking for love and
redefining their lives through partying and
meeting odd people. Director Bill Fishman odes a
good job of breathing that life into this picture.
His previous credits – only the ridiculously
unfunny CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU? in 1994, and the
odd-humor masterpiece TAPEHEADS in 1988, and a
Co-exec producer credit on the highly forgettable
western POSSE.
He still does an able job here, leading the
action where it needs to go, but this is an
entirely plot-driven story – essentially a chase
movie.
The acting is what really pulls this one above
the normal straight-to-video-comedy dreck. The
central cast are all strong performers with
extensive backgrounds as sidekicks and ensemble
players, and the innumerable cameos are hilarious
and unexpected. Christine Taylor – Marsha Brady,
the bald chick from Friends, the reporter in
ZOOLANDER, the slutty cousin in THE WEDDING
SINGER, and the real-life Mrs. Ben Stiller – puts
in an anchoring performance as the slightly
uptight and trying to be ‘together’ heroine of the
story. She comes to town to meet up with a man she
spent one glorious day with in Nepal. The only
thing standing in her way is her best friend, an
amusingly out-to-lunch wannabe actress with a lot
of issues.
Paget Brewster – best known for several TV
series, particularly ‘The Trouble With Normal’ and
most recently as the friendly boss on the superior
‘Andy Richter Controls The Universe’ – gives a
manic, glowing and comedically sound performance
as Frances, the uber-extra. While she prefers the
term ‘background artist’, Frances is a wannabe
actress whose biggest claim to fame is as a nipple
double. She parties hard and is constantly either
drinking, drunk or hung over. As a gorgeous flake,
Brewster makes Frances the soul of the film, and
is by far the most sympathetic character in the
film. She steals every scene, except one…
Joey Lawrence, that TV Keanu, of ‘Blossom’ and
‘Gimme A Break’ - who launched a New Kids style
singing career and a million magazine covers for
Teen Beat and Teen Dream and Tiger Beat and Dream
Tigers Beat Teens – is the funniest thing in a
very funny movie. Has Hell frozen over? Am I dead?
Maybe slipped through to an alternate
universe?
Seriously, watching Joey Lawrence as the
deluded former teen star actor, Darby Tipp, you
can’t help but wonder why he hasn’t been funny
before now. He obviously has the skills, I guess
he was busy trying to keep that Blossom coifed
from getting messed up. Here his hair is short,
his clothes are plain, and he is a comic magician.
When he takes the girls to his place and explains
Feng Shui, and then plays Grateful Dead tributes
on his guitar, I nearly wet myself. He offers
joints from the head of a Jerry Garcia bust, and
explains ‘They’re already rolled. I have a woman
who comes in. Cool, huh?’. That is funny.
Other cameos include Henry Rollins as a
determined and possibly psychopathic bartender,
Max Perlich as the goon who is somehow the object
of Frances’ obsession, John Cusack’s little
brother Billy Cusack, Wendy Jo Sperber from ‘Bosom
Buddies’, Chris Hogan, Richard Edson, Nicholas
Sadler, and Judy Greer from JAWBREAKER
Add Claudia Schiffer as a punk-goth singer,
John Corbett as a nerdy bug researcher and Patton
Oswalt from ‘King Of Queens’ paired up with Brian
Posehn from ‘Mr.Show’ and ‘Just Shoot Me’ and
you’ve got a full house. Oswalt and Posehn are
also hilarious as two track-suit wearing geeks who
spend the entire film discussing the sexual
orientation of Star Wars characters. It continues
on through the credits, along with some other good
stuff.
Crave Factor – 8
This is a funny
movie and for a good time, you could do much
worse.
Menu
The Menu pages are all artful black and white
montages of stills from the film. The main menu
has some color with pictures of Lili and Frances
in the bottom and top left with the title in
between, A large picture of John Corbett on the
right and the selections down the middle.
Play – Play Movie
Scene Selection – 4 chapters with still
photo title cards on each page, 12 chapters
total
Set-Up – Audio – English in 5.1 DDS or
2.0 Stereo ; Subtitles – English
Special Features – Next section
Crave Factor – 7
Not complicated
or detailed, just simple and fun, like the
film.
Extras
There are very few ‘extras’ on this disc.
Director and Cast – Text filmographies
for cast and the director
Trailer – Theatrical trailer – very
grainy and dark, hard to see, not a good
transfer
Crave Factor – 4
Almost nothing to
rate, and the trailer looks like a TV commercial
for a Canadian Film Board feature.
Video
1.33:1 Fullscreen.
Not a lot of flash and panache on this one,
sometimes the dark sets and exterior night stuff
are waaay too dark to see a bloody thing, but
overall, it doesn’t detract from the film, if you
go into it as a casual viewer, just wanting to be
entertained.
Crave Factor – 6
Lots of shadow,
and a few grainy moments.
Audio
English in 5.1 DDS or 2.0 Stereo.
The sound mix is excellent for such a small
film, Everyone’s voices are crisp and clear, and
Fishman watches that old cliché, where people are
having a normal conversation in a crowded and
rowdy bar. In this movie, when they are in the
bar, everyone is yelling, two or three times to be
heard. The music is also pretty good, with a lot
of L.A. indie kind of stuff mixing girl-pop with
lounge and ska. The two singing actors, however,
are absolutely horrible. Joey Lawrence is supposed
to be bad, and he is. Claudia Schiffer, on the
other hand, is supposed to be passable at least,
and she growls and snarls and mumbles so
completely off-key that you want to hit the ffwd
button.
Crave Factor – 7
Not bad at all
for a little indie flick, but they usually have
better music, right?
Conclusions & Final Thoughts
Unfortunately marked down because of the
package and the average picture quality, this is a
fun movie. Throw it in for a couple of friends and
pop some corn. Throw in a few fuzzy navels and a
couple of slippery nipples and it’s a party.
+ Good fun, Joey Lawrence is hilarious
- Very slim package – no
extras | 
Christine Taylor
